Visual Studio 2012 met Visual COBOL integreet by MicroFocus

Integration achieves quality platform for modernizing business-critical COBOL applications

 Micro Focus , a specialist in the field of modernization, testing and management of enterprise applications, today announced that Micro Focus Visual COBOL integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. Developers can now use Visual COBOL within the development environment Visual Studio 2012. This allows existing COBOL applications are used, improved and deployed alongside other Microsoft platforms and programming languages ​​such as C #, Visual Basic and ASP.NET.

Organizations around the world depend on which enterprise COBOL applications run. These form the basis of many IT systems and business-critical processes. By integrating Visual COBOL and Visual Studio 2012, developers of both the current generation and those of tomorrow, use of leading development tools. Moreover, the productivity of the developer, in providing new and updated software, increased. Different development teams, which were previously spread across multiple technical disciplines, are now united and can therefore effectively together. Furthermore, organizations that make the transition to new platforms do not suffer from the lack of COBOL professionals.

"We are honored to partner with Micro Focus to work on the optimization of Visual Studio 2012," said Tom Lindeman, Director Visual Studio Industry Partner Program at Microsoft. "Visual Studio 2012 improves the development process and helps teams of any size needing to collaborate more efficiently. By adding Visual COBOL development teams have all the means to quickly provide quality and modern applications to build. "

Kevin Brearley, senior director of product management at Micro Focus: "Both Microsoft and Micro Focus walk at the forefront of technical innovation in the development and modernization market. We are constantly innovating and are proud that we are the new generation of COBOL development products can make to the current Visual Studio user. The integration is an important step that ensures that Visual COBOL not only now but in the future will continue to achieve business innovation. "

The main advantages of Micro Focus Visual COBOL are:

The ability to critical business applications ready for the future. The applications can be migrated to Windows platforms and retain as their value.
The productivity and performance of the developers improved. This causes the expanded resources and the software can be quickly developed and delivered.
The ability to modernize COBOL systems and access to mobile and web channels.
More information about Visual COBOL is available at www.microfocus.com/vs2012 .

Borland DevPartner Studio 11
In addition to the integration with Visual COBOL, Micro Focus has also Borland DevPartner 11 with Microsoft Visual Studio integrated. This integration improves application development, reduces costs and speeds delivery of applications. Application developers can now solve problems from within Visual Studio 2012, locate instability and potential defects detection.

Complete ASP.NET 4.5 Support Offered by OrcsWeb

OrcsWeb is one of the leading providers of Microsoft Windows-based cloud and dedicated server hosting solutions. To remain at the top, the company must remain up-to-date on all the latest technologies. Their quick adoption of the latest version of ASP.NET only cements their dedication.

OrcsWeb announced that ASP.NET 4.5 is now available across all platforms – cloud and dedicated. They worked closely with Microsoft throughout the beta stage to make sure their .NET 4.5 support was perfect. Users can expect new features, increased performance and control, and other benefits with the latest release of .NET.

“ASP.NET 4.5 is the most exciting release of the .NET framework yet. Microsoft has made significant performance improvements in both application startup and memory utilization that customers will recognize immediately,” according to Jeff Graves, Director of Technology. “Security improvements help web developers easily protect their application from malicious users with unobtrusive validation and the baked-in AntiXSS library. Asynchronous HTTP calls are much easier to manage with the new await command. The best part is that OrcsWeb clients can take full advantage of these features today, across all of our platforms.”

Here are the key improvements that users will find built into .NET 4.5:

ASP.NET 4.5 uses bundling (which combines separate JavaScript files for faster loading) and minification (which reduces the size of JavaScript and CSS files by removing unneeded characters).
ASP.NET 4.5 can read, write, and flush a stream asynchronously. This asynchronicity lets you send data to a client incrementally without tying up operating system threads.
The new async and await keywords make it easier to write asynchronous HTTP modules and asynchronous HTTP handlers.
ASP.NET 4.5 provides ways to read un-validated request data so that you can allow users to pass markup for selected fields or pages.

As the Microsoft developer world turns: Guidance for the perplexed

Microsoft is in the midst of launching a host of new operating systems and tools this summer/fall. So what's a developer to choose to build apps and services for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Windows Server 2012 and/or Windows Azure?

There are familiar, legacy .NET tools and frameworks available, like Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation. There are newer and less familiar (to many Microsoft developers) options including XAML and HTML5/JavaScript. And on the server side, there's ASP.Net for building server-based Web applications.

Microsoft tools vendor Telerik has delivered a new version of its Platform Guidance document that aims to help developers sort through the myriad choices, based on the type of application they are developing. The eight-page Platform Guidance PDF is a free download, available as of September 18.

The document doesn't advocate abandonning tried but true platforms like Silverlight, even though Microsoft seems to be trying to wean developers from that platform by downplaying it and declining to comment on its future, beyond committing to support Silverlight 5 through 2021. (Ditto with WinForms, which Telerik notes isn't the best choice for "greenfield" development, but which still has its place.)

Here's the Cliff Notes version of what the Telerik principals are recommending for development of each type of app:

Desktop Applications – WPF
Dashboard/Reporting Applications – ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) with HTML5
Data-Driven Websites – ASP.NET MVC and Web API
Interactive Web Applications (Forms over Data) – ASP.NET WebForms
Mobile Website – ASP.NET MVC HTML5
Tablet Applications – XAML and .NET

The Platform Guidance document includes a chart to help developers evaluate whether XAML or HTML is a better choice for building a Metro-Style -- now know officially as "Windows Store" -- application:

At only eight pages, the Guidance document isn't meant to be a be-all/end-all work. But it's a starting point, which offers some much-needed suggestions for those attempting to navigate the rapidly changing Microsoft development waters.

Web Matrix 2 is Reborn the Matrix

Microsoft's general web development tool, Web Matrix, has been released in version 2. It not only supports ASP.NET, but PHP and Node.js. It might not be open source, but it is free to download and use. What is in it for us? What is in it for Microsoft?

Web Matrix 2 is a strange web development tool to be coming from Microsoft. It allows you to work with a range of open source, and more importantly non-Microsoft, web technologies. This is something that many potential users would find both puzzling and worrying - but in this case the Trojan horse is all too plain to see if you just look at what it is suggested you do with the website you have created.

The idea seems to be that Web Matrix 2 will funnel users into the arms of Azure, Microsoft's cloud hosting service. However, this said, you can use Web Matrix for general web development and deploy on a LAMP server if that's what you want to do.

Web Matrix is a lightweight web development system that installs and sets things up correctly for you. If you download it then you can basically get started on your web site by selecting the appropriate template, waiting a few minutes while the site is generated, and then you can start coding. A development web server, IIS 7.5 Express, is set up for you and you can generally launch web pages as soon as you have created them.


The main supported technologies are ASP.NET, PHP, Node.js and of  course HTML5/JavaScript. The code editor supports highlighting and code completion and makes it easy for you to work.  Support for Node.js and mobile web sites are the two major new features. You can also use CoffeeScript if you want to. Mobile web sites are supported by the use of jQuery Mobile.
As well as the basic technologies, Web Matrix also supports websites based on many different frameworks - WordPress, Joomla, Ubraco, Kentico and more. Again the huge advantage is that the templates install a configured starter site complete with all dependencies. You simply select the sort of website you want to work with and it is ready to go in a few minutes. Amazingly you can opt to use either SQL Express or MySQL as the database for the sites.
You can see an overview video below:



The main new features in Web Matrix 2 include:
Extensibility model lets you write your own plug-ins or use community-built ones
Faster install of open source apps such as Joomla!, WordPress, Drupal, DotNetNuke and Umbraco
New templates for PHP, Node.js and HTML5, and mobile support for all templates
Intellisense (code completion) for major languages, including Razor, C#, VB, PHP, Node.js, HTML5,
CSS3 and Jquery
Application-specific code completion for top apps like Umbraco, WordPress and Joomla!
Simple UI to install NuGet packages
Ability to preview your site using mobile emulators
Remote view to make quick edits to files on live sites

At the end of your development process Web Matrix will offer to publish your site to Azure, but it also offers other options so you are in no way trapped by it. Of course, it is better integrated with Azure but you would expect this from a Microsoft product.

Overall Web Matrix makes it worth trying to overcome any anti-Microsoft bias you might have. It is a free web development tool that works with open source technologies to create a general, standards-based website. It is free to use and works with non-Microsoft technologies in a very even handled way. It is certainly worth trying out.

Bonsai Media Group Takes Umbraco Website Development To A New Level

With the launch of their new website, Bonsai Media Group, a Seattle-based Internet marketing agency brings website design and development to a new level. The website features an interactive homepage that allows visitors to discover the three areas of expertise that Bonsai provides and drill down from there. Clouds float by gracefully across the sky and transitions without the use of flash animation, sticking to Bonsai’s philosophy of building websites that can be viewed on all platforms. To up the cool factor, there’s also a 3D version of the homepage (3D glasses not included).

Designed in line with Bonsai’s recently updated branding, the website features four fun characters, a ninja, sensei, grasshopper and samurai. For you Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fans, the samurai is a Shredder-esque character that will bring back memories from the early 1990′s. The sensei, and the grasshopper is a fun half-human, half-grasshopper creation. Seattle comic book artist, Dimi Macheras, illustrated the cartoon characters that bring both the website and the brand to life. The website’s copy was spiced up with the help of copywriter, Keith Creighton, of Sudden Monkey.

The website was designed in-house and developed on the Umbraco content management system. Umbraco is an open source ASP.NET content management system which has an enormous following in Europe and is quickly gaining ground in the U.S. due to its many benefits including:

Leverages a flat XML file and not a database call for content so it’s really fast

Fully customizable fields like a rich text editor for “what you see is what you get” content writing

Active and engaging community that develops free and commercial packages

Going open source back in 2005, the Umbraco CMS platform is taking the business world by storm. Extremely popular in Europe, some of the largest sites on the web, including Microsoft, Wired, and Vogue, are built on the Umbraco platform.

Bonsai Media Group prides themselves on their ability to design, develop and market business class websites. They are one of only four Umbraco Certified Gold Partners in the United States and the only one based on the west coast.

Microsoft Office Store goes live

Microsoft has declared the Office Store open, meaning those running the Office 2013 preview can now integrate various web-based services into their productivity software.

A number of “cool apps” can now be tested out with the preview versions of Office, SharePoint or Exchange. Microsoft introduced the customer preview release of its Office 2013 productivity suite last month, and has been busy talking up its cloud-related features.

“We’ve built the store so you could integrate the very best of the web with the powerful features of Office and SharePoint,” said Microsoft’s Vivek Narasimhan in a company blog post. “We’ve also focused on making it really easy to get, install and use apps.

“All apps that are listed on the Store get extensively validated so users can trust them. Since these apps are all based on web-standards, they load straight away – there’s no need for IT to pre-load them. If you use a new machine, just sign-in with your Microsoft account and all your apps will be there.”

To Serve ASP.NET Based Enterprise Level Project IndiaNIC Increases the Workforce

ASP.NET is the best technology for building effective enterprise solutions, and IndiaNIC has been providing quality ASP.NET development services to corporates worldwide since several years. Recently, IndiaNIC made substantial additions to its workforce to meet the growing demand for ASP.NET.

As there has been a significant use of software in corporate companies, the demand of enterprise level IT solutions has increased. Large scale businesses face bigger competitive pressure that requires robust IT solution to manage the customer relationship, data of sales and marketing and other such content. ASP.NET has been one of the most preferred technologies to provide software solutions that ensure the flow and keeps the data easily accessible.

“Large enterprises require flawless process in maintaining accurate data and handling content management for what ASP.NET is preferred choice these days,” said Project Manager, ASP.NET Department at IndiaNIC. Looking at this trend, the company expanded their workforce to meet the demand. “IndiaNIC commits to provide best enterprise level solutions such as CRM, ERP and CMS and thus, recruiting more brains in ASP.NET technology makes the sense!” he added further.

The company is a trusted partner of Microsoft Inc. as a part of its Gold Certification program that helps developing enterprise level projects in MS technologies. “The developers and coders in ASP.NET technology have quicker and better access to the genuine tools as we are Microsoft Partner”, stated the Microsoft Technology Team Leader.

Giant corporate companies have started to understand the facility that enterprise level software can provide in managing their in-house staff and customers worldwide. Microsoft technologies are well known to provide scalable and user-friendly IT solutions that are easy to understand and operate.

Serving the industry since 15 years, IndiaNIC is an offshore company providing a wide range of IT solutions in web and mobile technologies. It serves robust software to various industry verticals and has expertise in developing web portals, Goods Management Tracking Systems (GMTS), Web Content Management System (CMS), Customer Relationship System (CRM), Order Management System (ORM), eCommerce Development or Shopping Cart and Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) etc.

“When it comes to IndiaNIC as a solution provider, the client is worry free about the project and there are various hiring models for affordable IT solutions for corporate companies. A transparent deal in the business and robust security measurements are two main reasons why corporate giants prefer IndiaNIC as their outsourcing hub”, said the CEO of the company finishing the conference.

Napa: new programming model for Office 15

As part of its recent announcement of the new version of Office, Microsoft has introduced a new programming model for developing add-ins that combines web technologies and cloud services. The new model is designed to work with future versions of the Office productivity suite and with the SharePoint portal technology. The "Office 365 Development Tools" – code-named "Napa" – currently have "public preview" status and include a model for developing hosted apps that can, Microsoft says, be operated via SharePoint, Windows Azure and custom web servers. Developers will be able to market their apps and add-ins through the new Microsoft Store, as well as through their own companies' app catalogues.

Napa is available as a free development environment for SharePoint and is also referred to as the "online companion to Visual Studio", Microsoft's IDE. As it integrates into a browser, no further desktop installations appear to be required and developers can work directly in the browser. Supported formats include HTML, client-side ASP.NET (ASPX), CSS and JavaScript. Switching to the forthcoming Visual Studio 2012 is only required for more ambitious scenarios. Microsoft says that existing Office and SharePoint extension models such as VBA, COM, VSTO and SharePoint Solutions will work in parallel with Napa, although these models are unlikely to be available to install via the online store.

To start experimenting with Napa, developers must register for the Office 365 Developer Preview. This allows them to access a dedicated developer site with an instance of Office 365 that can be used as a basis for writing, installing and testing apps; developers can then use Napa as described in detail in Microsoft's documentation. An introduction to Napa with screenshots is also available in a blog post by Jason Zander, Corporate VP for the Visual Studio Team in Microsoft's Developer Division. Developers can keep up-to-date with future developments by following the company's new "Apps for Office and SharePoint Blog".

Microsoft equips Windows Server for cloud duty

Microsoft is giving hosting providers and other organizations some tools for setting up their own Windows-based cloud systems using Microsoft Windows Server.

In conjunction with the company's Worldwide Partners Conference (WPC) this week in Toronto, Microsoft has released a preview set of technologies that can be installed on Windows Server that will allow organizations to set up virtual machines and Web hosting services that can then be offered as services, either internally or externally.

Microsoft initially developed all of the technologies to run its own Windows Azure cloud service, though it did not specify if this set of technologies would be fully interchangeable with Microsoft's own Azure service.

The pre-release preview of the technologies, called a Community Technology Preview (CTP), offers three sets of services that can be used by multiple parties. One is for hosting websites and Web applications. Another is for offering virtual machines, of either the Linux or Microsoft variety. The third set of services provides consumers with their own self-service portals.

On Monday, Microsoft announced that it would soon release Windows Server 2012, the next-generation Windows operating system for servers. Server manufacturers will get the OS in August and it will be generally available in September. During his keynote at WPC, Satya Nadella, who is president of Redmond's server and tools business, touted the release, along with these Azure-based technologies, as an alternative to VMware's cloud software.

For website hosting, the package runs not only Microsoft's own ASP (Active Server Pages) and ASP.NET frameworks, but also the open-source PHP Web programming language and Node.js JavaScript framework. It can run both Linux and Windows Server as virtual machines. The package also provides a portal, as well as an API (application programming interface), which both can be used to manage websites and virtual servers. It also includes the ability to provision services, keep track of billing, and add customized artwork and additional services.

The package requires at least four virtual machines running either Windows Server 2012, which will be available by September, or Windows Server 2008 R2. It requires System Center 2012 SP1, currently available only as a CTP. It also requires the updated .NET Framework, both versions 3.5 and 4. And it requires both SQL Server 2008 and MySQL 5.1.

There seems to be interest around offering Windows Server as a cloud service. Monday, hosting provider Rackspace announced that it would start offering Windows Server 2012 as a virtual machine service in the cloud sometime in the next few months.

DiscountASP.NET Offers Free Web Matrix v2 RC beta Hosting Sandbox with node.js

Global ASP.NET hosting innovator, DiscountASP.NET offers free WebMatrix v2 RC beta hosting sandbox with node.js support to the web developer community.

DiscountASP.NET, a leading innovator in Windows Server hosting, announces a free Web Matrix v2 RC beta hosting sandbox program for the web developer community to experience the next-generation version of Web Matrix. This new free beta hosting program also supports node.js.

Microsoft WebMatrix is an all-in-one Web development tool that allows web developers to easily install open source web applications, or use web templates as a starting point to develop customized web sites. The most recent Web Matrix v2 RC includes enhancements to more easily install many open source applications, adds support for more languages like PHP, HTML5 and node.js, adds support for developing mobile-friendly web sites, and adds support for writing extensions which can be made available in a new extension gallery.

“Microsoft continues to simplify and expand the web development experience with their next-generation tools like Web Matrix,” said Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing and Business Development at DiscountASP.NET. “Our free Web Matrix v2 RC hosting sandbox will provide the web developer community an opportunity to test out Web Matrix along with node.js.”

The free sandbox hosting program is a limited program offered as an open beta on a first come first serve basis. The beta hosting sandbox comes with 50 MB of disk space and 50 MB of SQL Server 2008 R2 database space and 50 MB of MySQL database space. This platform is only intended for testing purposes and should not be used for a production web site.

Microsoft announces Visual Studio 2012 RC

The Release Candidates are available for download with "Go Live" licenses, in time for the Windows 8 Release Preview.

Microsoft is one step closer to delivering the final versions of its Visual Studio integrated development environment and the .NET Framework 4.5. The Release Candidates are available today for download with "Go Live" licenses, in time for the Windows 8 Release Preview, which was also released on Thursday.

The Release Candidates of Visual Studio 11, now officially named Visual Studio 2012, are available to all developers (including MSDN subscribers). In addition to a new name, and a new purple logo, Microsoft is reintroducing a customizable setup process that allows developers to bypass installation of select Visual Studio components.

With or without a streamlined setup, users of the Release Candidates should see improved installations, which are about 20 percent faster than the beta releases, according to Microsoft Corporate Vice President Jason Zander, who heads the Visual Studio team.

Zander provided an overview of what's new in the Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate in his blog and offered a demonstration of some of those features in a Channel 9 Visual Studio Toolbox video, hosted by Robert Green. In addition to the updated user interface, which reintroduces some color in the icons and elsewhere in response to developer feedback on the beta; the RC offers performance enhancements in areas such as typing, the toolbox and large C++ projects, according to Zander.

With the Visual Studio 2012 Release Candidate, Microsoft is introducing more Web publishing features, for example, additional support for Entity Framework Code First Migrations. The Release Candidate also supports Web site optimization through bundling and minification (removing unnecessary characters from source code) in JavaScript, and ASP.NET MVC 4 projects.

In addition, the Release Candidates introduce significant updates to the Visual Studio XAML designer and Microsoft Expression Blend tooling, according to Zander. For XAML projects, Microsoft is introducing theme animations from an Animations library, as well as a devices panel, which enables you, for example, to see the FullScreenLandscape, FullScreenPortrait, Filled, and Snapped states of Metro-style apps. Expression Blend for HTML supports the display and editing of multiple images, background gradients and components. It also adds the ability to cut and paste styles (CSS properties) between rules.

The company announced the official Visual Studio 2012 product lineup and specifications on May 18, when the next generation of products was still codenamed "Visual Studio 11." The Visual Studio 2012 editions and hardware requirements remain largely unchanged from Visual Studio 2010 outside of the free, lightweight Visual Studio 2012 Express tools, which are now platform-centric.

Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate is the company's all-in-one Application Lifecycle Management platform. It integrates all of the tools (including the higher end testing functionality and design tools) with Visual Studio 2012 Team Foundation Server for team collaboration. Microsoft Technical Fellow Brian Harry, the product unit manager for Team Foundation Server (TFS), details the changes in the Visual Studio 2012 TFS Release Candidate in his blog. Visual Studio 2012 Premium offers most of the diagnostic and testing tools without the high level architecture and modeling support. Visual Studio 2012 Professional is the entry-level developer product. Visual Studio LightSwitch, which was introduced out of band last summer and formerly a standalone product, is now available in all three editions. Visual Studio 2012 features LightSwitch version 2, which adds Metro-style templates and support for the OData protocol.

Changes to Express Tooling
With the unveiling of the Visual Studio product lineup earlier this month, Microsoft announced that the free Express tools are now platform-centric with multiple language support. So far the company has previewed Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8 (Metro-style apps), Visual Studio 2012 Express for the Web and Visual Studio 2012 Team Foundation Server Express. All three Release Candidates are available for download.

The earlier previews of Visual Studio 2012 did not support Windows Phone development or the out of band Windows Azure upgrades. Microsoft has announced that it is planning to introduce Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows Phone with the next release of Windows Phone, and Windows Azure tooling in conjunction with an upcoming upgrade to its cloud platform.

You can still download and use the language editions of Visual Studio 2010 Express (Visual C#, Visual Basic, Visual C++) free of charge.Visual Studio Express 2010 tools and apps will run on Windows 8, according to a Microsoft.

Visual Studio 2012 targets Windows Vista and higher. Some existing apps may not be compatible with .NET 4.5, which is an in-place upgrade. Developers can use Visual Studio's multi-targeting support to run managed applications on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 with .NET 4 and earlier versions of the framework, according to Microsoft. However, multi-targeting for C++ requires a side-by-side installation of Visual Studio 2010.

Windows Azure Recipe: Software as a Service (SaaS)

The cloud was tailor built for aspiring companies to create innovative internet based applications and solutions. Whether you’re a garage startup with very little capital or a Fortune 1000 company, the ability to quickly setup, deliver, and iterate on new products is key to capturing market and mind share. And if you can capture that share and go viral, having resiliency and infinite scale at your finger tips is great peace of mind.
Drivers

Cost avoidance
Time to market
Scalability

Ingredients

Web Role – this hosts the core web application. Each web role will host an instance of the software and as the user base grows, additional roles can be spun up to meet demand.
Access Control – this service is essential to managing user identity. It’s backed by a full blown implementation of Active Directory and allows the definition and management of users, groups, and roles. A pre-built ASP.NET membership provider is included in the training kit to leverage this capability but it’s also flexible enough to be combined with external Identity providers including Windows LiveID, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook. The provider model provides extensibility to hook into other industry specific identity providers as well.
Databases – nearly every modern SaaS application is backed by a relational database for its core operational data. If the solution is sold to organizations, there’s a good chance multi-tenancy will be needed. An emerging best practice for SaaS applications is to stand up separate SQL Azure database instances for each tenant’s proprietary data to ensure isolation from other tenants.

Worker Role – this is the best place to handle autonomous background processing such as data aggregation, billing through external services, and other specialized tasks that can be performed asynchronously. Placing these tasks in a worker role frees the web roles to focus completely on user interaction and data input and provides finer grained control over the system’s scalability and throughput.
Caching (optional) – as a web site traffic grows caching can be leveraged to keep frequently used read-only, user specific, and application resource data in a high-speed distributed in-memory for faster response times and ultimately higher scalability without spinning up more web and worker roles. It includes a token based security model that works alongside the Access Control service.

Blobs (optional) – depending on the nature of the software, users may be creating or uploading large volumes of heterogeneous data such as documents or rich media. Blob storage provides a scalable, resilient way to store terabytes of user data. The storage facilities can also integrate with the Access Control service to ensure users’ data is delivered securely.

Training & Examples
These links point to online Windows Azure training labs and examples where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. (Note: The entire Windows Azure Training Kit can also be downloaded for offline use.)

Windows Azure (16 labs)
Windows Azure is an internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services which can be used individually or together. It gives developers the choice to build web applications; applications running on connected devices, PCs, or servers; or hybrid solutions offering the best of both worlds. New or enhanced applications can be built using existing skills with the Visual Studio development environment and the .NET Framework. With its standards-based and interoperable approach, the services platform supports multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and plain XML

SQL Azure (7 labs)
Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on the Microsoft Data Platform vision of extending the SQL Server capabilities to the cloud as web-based services, enabling you to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data.

Windows Azure Services (9 labs)
As applications collaborate across organizational boundaries, ensuring secure transactions across disparate security domains is crucial but difficult to implement. Windows Azure Services provides hosted authentication and access control using powerful, secure, standards-based infrastructure.

Developing Applications for the Cloud, 2nd Edition (eBook)
This book demonstrates how you can create from scratch a multi-tenant, Software as a Service (SaaS) application to run in the cloud using the latest versions of the Windows Azure Platform and tools. The book is intended for any architect, developer, or information technology (IT) professional who designs, builds, or operates applications and services that run on or interact with the cloud.

Fabrikam Shipping (SaaS reference application)
This is a full end to end sample scenario which demonstrates how to use the Windows Azure platform for exposing an application as a service. We developed this demo just as you would: we had an existing on-premises sample, Fabrikam Shipping, and we wanted to see what it would take to transform it in a full subscription based solution. The demo you find here is the result of that investigation

Crucial Info concerning WebMatrix

WebMatrix is the web development tool through ‘microsoft’ intended for free which offers quick but also robust platform useful for world-wide-web design as well as development. If developers inside your web-site development company in UK are recognized in regards to the Microsoft’s World-wide-web Platform Installer, they ought to understand the multi-tasking management application’s time saving functions. As a programmer of Website Development Company, you will get a chance to install, use, and locate numerous blogging application and open-sourced CMS solutions supplied by WebMatrix web development solutions. Web Development Company can find free of charge web templates that exist and web-site coding can be completed from within this application. WebMatrix provides accessibility of a single point to end users as well as efficiently handle web development solution in London.

What does WebMatrix has to offer to world-wide-web development solutions in UK? You’ll find vital attributes of WebMatrix.

There’s the one-step installing of the essential dependency elements. Once you make its set up, the application uses a MS WPI or Microsoft world-wide-web platform installer to ensure for the full easy method. The Microsoft WPI create research within the PC for locate lacking out-of-date programs if any, running and use WebMatrix. The app collects most important installs into single bundle instantly but also allows you to set up that in a single download.

Another feature will be the critical programs in lightweight format. The IIS Express is the web host incorporated but also seo’ed for programmers. An integrated word wide web hosting server with the WebMatrix permits user to style and try out the web-sites to your on-line end users. An excellent feature of the WebMatrix is the multiple open-sourced programs. There are more than 30 open-sourced platforms accessible in the WebMatrix Web Application Gallery. The WebMatrix is primarily helpful for newbies, hobbyist developers and as well as open source app resources users.

As a programmer giving web development service in London, Using Web link http://www.asp.net/webmatrix/, you can set up WebMatrix following total installing. Add PowerNodes controls by emptying the particular WebMatrix components folder of an old PowerNodes files, copy all PowerNodes web devices towards the elements folder. Afterwards, open WebMatrix and as well as open the aspx file to find out the control Toolbox. Reset the Custom Controls tools in order to eliminate outdated PowerNodes settings and then include Controls by selecting the dlls through the WebMatrix components folder. Remember, until you have got a certain purpose, don’t add the assemblies to the GAC.

After start of ‘microsoft’ Web System installer, it immediately display an option intended for WebMatrix Set up by clicking that button, you are able to set it up and after that allow the terms of license. With WebMatrix, Microsoft expects that it could be much easier to develop world-wide-web apps or websites inspite of the system size but also for whom it is designed for. Along with it, you have 2 key selections. The first option is to begin coding with the use of the in-built IDE from scratch or using a template web site furnished with the application. The 2nd one is usage of WebMatrix tool for setting up open-source web-app from list available for free of charge like Joomla, WordPress, Umbraco or other using its built-in directory. This guides you from the job of to put in, personalize and deploy world-wide-web apps of the World-wide-Web Development Company in UK.

Use IAPIExplorer To List Your ASP.NET Web APIs

IApiExplorer is a new abstraction layer that allows you to obtain a description of the structure of your ASP.NET Web APIs. This interface also comes with a default implementation - APIExplorer.

IApiExplorer is an abstraction layer that allows you to obtain a description of the structure of your Web APIs. This information can be used to produce documentation, machine-readable metadata, or a test client.

ApiExplorer is the default implementation of IApiExplorer that inspects the routes and other Web API constructs to produce the description.

Some of the things you can do with this API -
Produce Documentation
Create Machine Readable Metadata
Create a Test Client

The main goal of this class is to produce a collection of ApiDescription. It does so by statically inspecting the routes and the available actions inside your controllers. Each ApiDescription describes an API that is available on your service. As you can see from the simplified class diagram below, the ApiDescription contains basic information such as the HttpMethod, the RelativePath, the Documentation, etc. But it also points to an ActionDescriptor which is part of the core Web API component that knows everything about an action. You can use it to access a lot more information such as the action name, the return type, the custom attributes, etc. Similarly, you can access the ParameterDescriptor for the expected parameters.

Will Microsoft dive into Open Source Ecosystem?

Microsoft has come a long way in its acceptance of open source. And its motto doesn’t seem to be (this time) to embrace and extinguish.

The Microsoft watching will go on. A few illustrious members of the worldwide Microsoft community to share their insights via guest posts on a variety of topics — from Windows Phone, to Hyper-V. Today’s entry is all about Microsoft and open source and is authored by Richard Turner.

Microsoft is increasingly warming to open source. Not only is the company increasingly publishing open-source projects of its own, it’s also developing major parts of its web/cloud infrastructure in the open and is also supporting a variety of external open-source projects. This is great news, but it’s taken a long time and a considerable amount of hard work and damage-repair to make it happen.

Microsoft’s stance on open source began to thaw during the 2000’s as the company grew-up and learned more about open source and how it can significantly benefit all of us.

It would be constructive to share examples that illustrate that Microsoft (and its ecosystem) are serious about mending fences, supporting external open-source projects and opening up development teams and projects.

Here’s the top 10 list:
1. Encouraging the Open Source Ecosystem
The Windows and .NET development community is exploding with home-grown .NET open-source projects and initiatives. Everything from IoC/DI containers such as Ninject, AutoFac, Castle Windsor and StructureMap to testing tools like nUnit. From NOSQL document stores like (the utterly awesome) RavenDB to powerful Content Management Systems (CMS) like Orchard and Umbraco. And let’s not forget IronPython, IronRuby and F# that Microsoft nurtured before transitioning to community ownership in 2010.

These are just a tiny subset of the amazing range of open-source projects built specifically for (or supporting) the .NET/Windows platform.

2. Wheel-Reinventing Reduced
One of the biggest criticisms many have had of Microsoft is its insistence in building its own version of technologies that already exist in the open-source world.

It came as a pleasant surprise, therefore, when Microsoft shipped ASP.NET MVC 3.0 with jQuery and Modernizr included. This was a big step forward (and was the result of a HUGE amount of effort internally) and marked one of the first times Microsoft shipped a major product containing open-source code. In ASP.NET 4.0, Microsoft is continuing the adoption of open-source projects by including jQuery Mobile & JSON.NET.

3. Facilitating With NuGet Package Manager
Almost every active open-source development ecosystem has seen huge growth in the number of open-source utility libraries made available by “package managers” such as Ruby’s Gems, node’s npm, etc. These package managers allow developers to simply type, for example, “npm install express” and the express library will be downloaded and installed into the user’s current project/system.

A package management tool was missing from the Windows/.NET developer’s toolbox until a skunk-works team at Microsoft created NuGet – a package manager for .NET developers. NuGet and its accompanying site, gallery and package feed were adopted by the Outercurve Foundation in October 2010 and is now maintained by the NuGet team and the community. The NuGet gallery currently contains almost 6000 packages including jQuery, Modernizr, JSON.NET, ELMAH, log4net, Ninject, and the vast majority of the libraries most useful to .NET developers.

While many other open-source communities would scoff at “only 6000” packages being available, it’s important to note that the project count is increasing rapidly and that the proportion of really useful packages to frivolous and/or repetitive packages is very small. Let’s hope it stays this way!

4. Making Windows a great platform for open-source
Many of the hottest open-source projects available today were originally built on Linux-based platforms and, as such, are welded to UNIX-style IO, file storage, process management and thread scheduling mechanisms. In order to run on Windows, such projects typically run under CygWin – a POSIX emulation infrastructure that allows most POSIX apps to run unchanged on Windows. While this is a pragmatic approach for non-performance-sensitive code, Cygwin often introduces a significant performance hit in high performance code.

This was the situation facing node – the blossoming asynchronous JavaScript engine – to run on Windows, it had to be run under CygWin, which impacted performance significantly. To solve this problem, Microsoft and Joyent (node’s primary sponsor & employer of Ryan Dahl - node’s creator) agreed to work together to make node run natively on Windows. The work to port node to Windows spawned LibUV – a library that provides a platform-abstraction layer allowing node (and any other open-source project) take full advantage of both *N*X and Windows’ async IO (and other platform dependent differences) with little effort.

In November 2011, Microsoft announced the first stable builds of node, using the new LibUV library, running natively on Windows. Simultaneously, Microsoft built IISNode allowing node to be hosted within IIS (Microsoft’s web server). The code for IISNode is hosted on GitHub and is free and open for all to see and/or modify should you wish to do so. And that’s not the end of the story: LibUV has turned out to be so useful that other open-source projects are now employing it to port their code to run natively on Windows.

5. Forking and Maintaining Ports
In a sign of increasing maturity in how it works with open-source communities, Microsoft has now begun (appropriately) forking and maintaining open-source projects: In November 2011, Antirez announced that Microsoft had provided patches to port Redis to run natively on Windows, using LibUV. While Antirez decided NOT to accept Microsoft’s patches into the Redis core (yet, for reasons he articulated in the post linked to above), he encouraged Microsoft to create their own Windows fork of Redis. Microsoft worked with others in the community to create a Windows fork of Redis which became the first project officially published by the newly formed Microsoft Open Technologies Inc. subsidiary formed in 2012 and is run by Jean Paoli.

6. Supporting Apache, PHP and Ruby on Windows
In 2008, Microsoft began helping upgrade Apache and PHP significantly update their projects in order to support the newer and far more effective Visual C++ 2008 VC9 compiler. This work resulted in native builds of both the Apache web server and the PHP engine which consumed less RAM and performed much better than before.

In 2008, alongside the new and improved PHP, Microsoft also released support for FastCGI within IIS. This enabes IIS to reliably host non-threadsafe code such as PHP and Ruby, alongside .NET code and native IIS handlers and modules within the same website if required. This means that IIS can now safely and reliably host PHP-based websites and services including Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.

7. Supporting open-source platforms in Azure
At Mix09, Microsoft announced official support for PHP, Java and Ruby on Windows Azure.

Since Windows Azure Web Role instances are essentially Windows Server VM’s, this should come as no surprise since Microsoft had already released FastCGI support for IIS.

What this announcement introduced, however, was the fact that not only was Microsoft supporting PHP, Ruby and Java on Azure, but that they were also in the process of providing comprehensive API’s for each environment, allowing developers to access all of Azure’s service control & configuration capabilities, table, blob and queue storage, message-bus infrastructure, etc. from their preferred language/platform.
Then, in December 2011, after the work to port node to Windows was completed, Microsoft announced that node is now fully supported in the Windows Azure cloud platform, along with a node Azure SDK providing programmatic access to the Azure environment and storage and message-bus infrastructure.

8. Backing Hadoop
In late 2011, Microsoft and HortonWorks announced they were teaming-up to port Hadoop to Windows. This is a big deal; not only did Microsoft decide to plow effort and resources into porting Hadoop to Windows, they decided to abandon their own home-grown big-data solution in the process. Microsoft’s adoption of Hadoop can only result in good things – particularly to end-users who will be able to analyze colossal datasets using familiar tools such as Excel and PowerView.

9. Becoming A Top-20 Contributor To The Linux Kernel
In 2011, Microsoft became one of the top 20 contributors to the Linux kernel … the same Linux that CEO Steve Ballmer described as a “cancer” just over 10 years previously. My, how times change!

Microsoft’s contributions largely center around drivers they submitted to enable Linux to be hosted within Hyper-V – Microsoft’s OS virtualization technology. The drivers Microsoft submitted to the Linux kernel project provide a significant performance boost to Linux VMs’ storage, networking and video-subsystems.

10. Open Sourcing ASP.NET MVC4.0, WebAPI and Razor View Engine
Perhaps the biggest news related to Microsoft and open source came when Microsoft announced that:

ASP.NET 4.0 MVC, Web API and Razor View Engine would be made open-source
The ASP.NET team will consider accepting changes to ASP.NET submitted by the community
The ASP.NET team would continue development of ASP.NET “in the open”, submitting all future code changes into a public-facing GIT repository hosted by the Outercurve Foundation’s CodePlex site.
It clear that Microsoft has finally turned a corner and is now increasingly following a path towards greater acceptance and support for open-source. This is a GIGANTIC step forward.

Microsoft is leading by example and sending a strong message to their legions of developers that open-source need be feared no longer and that publishing open-source code benefits everyone. Hopefully, this will result in a gradual, but eventually sizable increase in the volume of high-quality, reusable code being made available as open-source for us all to enjoy, learn from, help improve and adopt.

Now, the time is Come. Welcome to the open-source world, Microsoft. Please Hop-On.

Apprenda Partners with Philly.NET to Present 'The Future of ASP.NET' with Microsoft’s Scott Hanselman

Apprenda, the open Platform as a Service (PaaS) stack for .NET, in conjunction with Philly.NET, is hosting an event focused on the Future of ASP.NET with Microsoft's Scott Hanselman. This special meeting will be held at the Montgomery County Community College Science Center Auditorium in Blue Bell, PA on Thursday, May 31 from 6:30-9:00 p.m.

“We work hard to be a contributing member of the .NET community through educational seminars, conferences, webinars, and our continued technological advancements,” said Matt Ammerman, vice president of client services at Apprenda. “Scott Hanselman is a leading voice in the developer community, and we’re proud to sponsor this event bringing together .NET developers with an industry thought leader like Scott.”
Hanselman is a principal program manager at Microsoft and works to spread information about developing software, specifically on the Microsoft stack. Previously, he was chief architect at the Corillian Corporation. He is also an adjunct professor at the Oregon Institute of Technology, where he teaches C#.

Microsoft Developers Conference - DevCon 2012 sponsored by Marlabs

Marlabs, a leading provider of innovative Information Technology services, announced today that it will be sponsoring the Microsoft developers conference, DevCon 2012, organized by the Kerala Microsoft Users Group (K-MUG) on May 19th, 2012 at the Park Centre in Technopark, Trivandrum. Considered the largest Microsoft tech event in Kerala, the conference will focus on emerging Microsoft technologies such as Windows 8, Windows Phone, Responsive Web Development, and Cloud & Mobile technologies.

 Marlabs, a leading provider of innovative Information Technology services, announced today that it will be sponsoring the Microsoft developers conference, DevCon 2012, organized by the Kerala Microsoft Users Group (K-MUG) on May 19th, 2012 at the Park Centre in Technopark, Trivandrum. Considered the largest Microsoft tech event in Kerala, the conference will focus on emerging Microsoft technologies such as Windows 8, Windows Phone, Responsive Web Development, and Cloud & Mobile technologies.

Anil Raghavan, Chief Delivery Officer, Marlabs, will inaugurate the event, and will speak on "The Role of Technology in Transforming Rural India" in his inaugural address.

DevCon 2012 will feature interactive sessions from a number Microsoft Speakers and Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP). Some of the sessions planned for the event include XNA based game development for Windows Phone, Visual Studio 11, Windows Phone App Development - HTML5, Hybrid & Cross Platform, and ASP.NET Web APIs. There will also be a Windows Phone App contest where participants stand to win a Nokia Lumia 800.

"Marlabs' involvement in DevCon 2012 reinforces our continued focus, thought leadership and commitment to the Microsoft community," says Anil Raghavan. "Marlabs has been at the forefront of emerging Microsoft technologies and we continue to work towards expanding our Microsoft competency through our dedicated Microsoft Center of Excellence (CoE)."

Marlabs is a Microsoft Gold partner with strong expertise in building connected ecosystems and enterprise collaboration tools. The company offers a broad range of Microsoft solutions including multiple enterprise collaboration and integration offerings for Microsoft's SharePoint and Windows Azure Cloud platforms.

To accelerate design and delivery of adaptive websites for agile businesses DotNetNuke announces global partnerships with Microsoft Gold Certified Partners

DotNetNuke Corp., the global leader in adaptive web software that keeps a business' online presence relevant and effective, today announced new partnerships with leading Microsoft Gold Certified Partners from around the world who specialize in web development and design. Microsoft Gold Certified Partners have special access to tools and support from both Microsoft and DotNetNuke that enable them to design, build and deploy commercial-grade websites that can quickly adapt to new opportunities on the Web. New DNN partners include: Iowa based Infinite Computing Systems, Australia-based SSW and Wisconsin-based Yahara Software. All three partners have demonstrated a high level of ASP.NET and DotNetNuke competency with successful implementations across a variety of industries.

DotNetNuke's expanding network of certified channel partners includes expert organizations in all major markets in North America, Western Europe and Australia. Certified partners have the ability to bundle DotNetNuke commercial software on projects, simplifying the purchasing process for organizations that need 'one stop shopping' for both software and services.

"Our customers depend on us to build websites that enhance their brand and their business," said, Rick Barchard, director of sales for Infinite Computing Systems of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "Our clients sites are easy to keep current and most importantly, help them compete in their markets. We standardized on DotNetNuke because it is the most robust, extensible and supported platform for Microsoft. There are thousands of modules and designs available on the DotNetNuke Store, giving us the ability to build commercial grade, easy to manage sites and deliver them quickly."

"SSW has been using DotNetNuke for more than 8 years to build interactive websites that enable our clients to attract new prospects and convert those prospects into clients," stated Marlon Marescia, sales manager for SSW. "What we love about DotNetNuke is the way we can extend it to do almost anything our clients require; whether something simple like adding a form to capture a visitors details or building an online service to help people sell their house quickly and efficiently."

"We are very excited to ramp-up our level of commitment to the DotNetNuke platform," stated Bob Vanden Burgt, principal and co-owner of Yahara Software in Madison, Wisconsin. "Over the past five years, our team has successfully leveraged the robust and flexible DNN framework to provide our clients with innovative solutions for rich media delivery, commerce, financial analysis, transportation and healthcare. The amazing global DotNetNuke community continues to flourish while the corporate team provides responsive technical direction and market insights. For a Microsoft Gold development company, building business solutions with DotNetNuke is like having your cake and eating it too."

"We're building one of the strongest partner channels in the industry," stated Bob Cortale, senior vice president of sales for DotNetNuke Corp. "Our partners choose DotNetNuke for the flexibility and extensibility of our platform, along with the price/performance advantage they can pass along to their clients. The end result is that our partners help our mutual customers get to market faster at highly competitive prices. And our customers can then adapt quickly to new business opportunities like mobile and social without wasting time and money reworking their web platform."

DotNetNuke (DNN) is the global leader in adaptive web software that keeps a business' online presence relevant and effective. DNN is the number one content management system in the Microsoft ecosystem that powers more than 700,000 websites worldwide. Cloud-ready and mobile friendly, the recently announced DotNetNuke 6.1 release makes it even faster and easier to build and deploy robust, flexible, secure websites that are simple to update for business people and content owners.

Microsoft Users DevCon returns to Trivandrum next weekend

The Kerala Microsoft Users Group (K-MUG) will be organising their next Developers Conference, DevCon 2012 on May 19, 2012 at the Park Centre in Technopark, Trivandrum. Billed as the largest Microsoft tech event in Kerala, DevCon 2012 would see a large number of software professionals engage and collaborate with Microsoft MVPs and other IT peers. The key attractions this time would be the Windows Phone and Windows 8 sessions.

Interacting with Kerala IT News, Sreejumon K P, one of the organisers, said, “There are three tracks on Windows Phone and I am sure this will attract many .NET developers into the Windows Phone ecosystem and application development. For the first time we are also doing a preview of Windows 8, the upcoming edition of the Windows Operating System from Microsoft, for the techies in Kerala.

Access Any Data Any Where, XNA based game development for Windows Phone, Visual Studio 11, Windows Phone App Development - HTML5, Hybrid & Cross Platform, ASP.NET Web APIs and Tips and Best Practices for Windows Phone Development are some of the sessions planned for the Developer Conference.

“We have an idea contest as well happening. The shortlisted attendees will present their ideas and a panel will select the top three ideas. The topper would get a Nokia Lumia 800 and all the great ideas will get support from Nokia to develop their application and submit in to Market place”, added Sreejumon.

The last Developers Conference to be held in Thiruvananthapuram was DevCon 2010 in July, 2010. Check out the DevCon 2012 homepage to get details about the sessions, speakers and for registration.